Analysis in brief: Regarded as the means to achieve digital inclusiveness in Africa, digital education will result in greater individual opportunities, as well as national economic and societal growth. This continental push is being spurred by several public and private partnership initiatives to overcome connectivity and literacy challenges.
Educating Africans in digital technology is made simpler by the fact that, in 2024, for the first time, a majority of Africans have internet technology, exemplified by the 51% of Sub-Saharan Africans who own smart phones. By 2030, an overwhelming majority of 88% of Sub-Saharan Africans will possess these devices. This is the start of a digitally literate population, who use apps for banking, amusement, news and more complex tasks. Meanwhile, digital education is increasing in schools, where students learn that their futures depend on mastering digital technologies.
Every African begins their digital education when they view their first YouTube or TikTok video, which is often their introduction to the usage of a digital technology. Educationalists are also levering this same technology to teach. As more Africans attain access to reliable internet connectivity, they learn of the growing array of e-learning platforms that are either general (following a school class’s curriculum, for example) or tailored to a learner’s specific needs through online courses. As AI-powered platforms grow rapidly, learning tools are becoming more specialised and sophisticated, providing AI-generated answers when learners pose questions.
e-Learning is not utopian though. It is merely a product of the current times, and at present, this technology seems to be the best current way to make education more accessible for all Africans. By making digital technology more wide-ranging, African nations’ economies will expand and, as their citizens access more information, so too will they be guided in civic matters, such as for their election voting.
For Africans who face poverty and security concerns, the challenges of digital inclusiveness are not insignificant. However, these challenges have been recognised by governments, NGOs, educationalists and international bodies who are inventing solutions.
Challenges facing digital learning are rooted in digital access
Digital education in Africa is slowed by many obstacles. As of 2024, only 38% of Africans had internet access, but even with such access, the ability to utilise learning platforms requires some previous education. Thus, digital education is tied to general education on a continent whose education suffers from gender and rural inequality. In 2024, 26% of African women were designated as undereducated by the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). However, by dedicating its 2025 Day of Digital Education to the theme of achieving digital education for under-resourced areas, UNESCO put forward digital accessibility as the foundation for general learning that can be achieved through online platforms. This is one way to address the conundrum of a holistic approach basic education that is both enhanced through digital technology and strengthened through digital literacy by integrating such tools into the learning process.
World Bank, 2024
Another UN organisation, the UN’s Children’s Fund UNICEF, and the International Telecom Union have undertaken their Giga initiative to provide internet access to every school in the world. To ensure that all students receive the same learning opportunities while their homes remain unconnected to the internet, UNESCO has proposed ‘hybrid teaching models’ that post and broadcast lessons simultaneously using radio, television and podcasts, giving students a choice of media platforms. Connectivity for much of Southern Africa is imminent through Google’s planned fibre optic cable that will run from South Africa to Zambia, unlike present internet cables that ring the continent in underwater systems embedded in the oceans.
Educationalists recognise that self-teaching through online learning platforms requires intrinsic motivation that varies from student to student. For students who are technologically challenged, easily bored or have learning disabilities, one solution may be virtual tutors who could provide individual assistance. While these tutors could be AI, they would ideally be humans. Some might be students themselves, while others could be degreed educators. Tutor training would then become a requirement for a country’s educational budget, resulting in job creation that has provable national development results.
No shortage of digital education initiatives
Both not-for-profit organisations and commercial firms are developing learning platforms to address classroom needs and individual home-based learning, covering school curricula and training for employment opportunities. By some estimations, only a fifth of African teachers are trained in the instruction of classes using digital learning tools. So, UNESCO has made the enhancement of teaching capacity the cornerstone of its 2022-2025 Strategy on Technological Innovation in Education. With digitally literate teaching expertise in place, digital learning platforms will function effectively.
One of the commercial firms involved in this innovation is the Swedish tech firm Ericsson, who has partnered with Morocco’s Ministry of Economic Inclusion, Small Business, Employment and Skills to boost digital education for small businesses to aid their growth in Morocco. This collaboration is an example of the public-private-partnership approach that unites private funding and expertise with public needs. Such partnerships are essential for the expansion of digital education, rewarding the private sector with a digitally literate workforce. Along these lines, the mobile phone service MTN Foundation has partnered with various entities in Uganda to furnish schools and training institutions with computer centres to foster digital literacy.
Among Africa’s leading digital learning tools, Kwane, an AI teaching assistant, is a wide arrange of apps dedicated to many fields of study with additional focus on student age groups. Elsewhere, more than 132,000 young Africans are being trained in coding and in other digital skills through Ingressive for Good’s technology training drive across the continent as one example. Students’ digital skills raise their employment prospects as well as fuel Africa’s digital transformation by providing a pool of technicians who at present are in short supply. Another project worth mentioning is the Africa Teen Geeks coding initiative, which offers courses in coding through after-school programmes, digital ‘boot camps’ in rural areas and teacher training to facilitate in-school programmes.
No educationalists are minimising the challenges faced by Africa’s digital education ambitions, especially the need to ensure electricity supplies that run devices, the provision of broadband connectivity and vastly expanded instructor training. However, a sampling of the initiatives above indicates that there is also no shortage of initiatives to achieve goals or enthusiasm to undertake these.
Image courtesy: Minette Lontsie via Wikipedia Commons
The critical points:
- Digital education is regarded as the means to achieve digital inclusiveness in Africa, leading to greater individual opportunities and national economic and societal growth
- With about 40% of Africans having internet access and a third of teachers trained in digital learning, e-education faces connectivity and training tasks
- Several initiatives involving public and private partnerships are applying imaginative solutions to engage Africans in digital learning